I guess the real answer lies somewhere in between. I use both baby steps and blitzes, and they both seem to have their place. So as long as we do at least one, that's most of the battle.
Building momentum is definitely cool, so starting with baby steps and ramping up as you can see a deadline become doable. I guess this is the logic behind paying off the smallest debts first, to build some confidence. I'd be willing to bet that there is a pretty significant flood of feel-good chemicals released into your bloodstream upon completion of a task, and the more arduous and difficult the more released. On the flip side, there is nothing more demoralizing than feeling overwhelmed and like you can't make progress.
This seems to be all I post about, so you can tell it weighs heavily on my mind, which is just about always groaning under the weight of something or other.
Anyway, on a related note, kudos to the people who keep this site running - it truly is a wealth of good financial info and I'm quite glad I found it 2 years or so ago.
What chunk of work works best for you? Baby steps? Blitzes?
March 28th, 2010 at 03:08 pm
March 28th, 2010 at 04:16 pm 1269789411
It's like losing weight. Saying on New Years I want to lose 50lbs in 2010 is seems like such a huge goal. By mid-January it seems unattainable to a lot of people and they just give up. Saying in Januray I want to lose 4lbs seems a lot easier to do. If you do that every month for 12 months you will almost hit your goal. More than likely half way through the year you will see the results and raise the mini-goals to hit the larger goal.
March 28th, 2010 at 05:18 pm 1269793138